


I keep looking at the sky

by Prairie_City



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prairie_City/pseuds/Prairie_City
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Sam gets shrunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I keep looking at the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Season 1 or 2 Sam n' Dean. In other words, there's pretty much nothing about nothing. It's also rough. You've been warned.

 

“What d’you think, go in hot or cold?” Dean asked, inserting his Taurus’s clip with a satisfying click.  
  
“Lock picks or bashing-in-doors, guns blazing?” Sam asked dryly, glancing up from his own gun.  
  
“Yeah, see, the way I see it, take her by surprise, right? No chances she’ll be ready for us.  
  
“No," Sam drawled.  "We’ll just scare the bejeezus out of the neighbors and bring the cops down on our asses.”  
  
“Pansy,” Dean huffed, and got a cool, unimpressed stare in return. “All right, all right. Lock picks it is.”  
  
With that, they slammed the trunk closed, made sure the car was locked, and struck off on foot, jogging easily and eating up the half-mile between the car and their target. They slowed at the nearest corner and fell into single-file, Sam on point. They stuck to the alley’s dark shadows and moved forward on light feet, coming to the target door and stopping on either side. They exchanged glances in the dark and Dean nodded. Sam leaned forward and touched the knob, applying gentle torque against the lock, readying the picks.  
  
Only the knob met no resistance. The door was unlocked.  
  
Sam’s eyebrows jumped on his face, and he turned to look at his brother. Dean looked back, wide-eyed, and shrugged.  
  
Sam swallowed and straightened, shifting his feet carefully, closed his hand more firmly on the knob, readied his gun.  
  
He glanced at his brother, and Dean nodded, and Sam put his shoulder to the door.  
  
That’s when Dean saw the trigger wire.  
  
“No,  _wait!”_  he yelled, and Sam had just enough time to dart wide, startled eyes in Dean’s direction before the door slammed shut and exploded outward, taking Sam with it.  
  
  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Dean stood there for an instant, stunned motionless and covered in plaster dust. The localized blast had taken out the door and the man standing right in front of it, and left Dean, standing a little to the left, almost entirely untouched. He stood there for a long moment, staring at the place where Sam had been just an instant before.  
  
Then something caught his eye from the ground right where Sam had been standing. Or rather, some _things_.  
  
It was Sam’s shoes.  
  
 _“Son of a bitch,”_  Dean said. “Oh, Christ.  _SAM!”_  
  
He spun in a circle, eyes seeking his brother's distinct shape in the shadows.  He wasn't there.  
  
“Fuck,” Dean said fervently, starting to panic. “Motherfucking  _fuck!”_  
  
He took two steps away from the splintered door, eyes darting around. Sam was just  _gone._  No sign of him. Vanished. Dean took a deep breath, filling his lungs to the max, and bellowed his brother’s name with all his might.  
  
It echoed back at him,  _AM-AM-AM,_  hoarse and mocking before trailing off into brittle, icy silence. Wide-eyed, desperate, Dean was about to do...something. Yell again, maybe. Certainly not puke. Or shit himself.  _Certainly not._  
  
But then he heard something. Something like a very quiet, very tiny  _“Ow.”_  
  
Dean stopped, then screwed his face up in an effort to listen, not sure he’d heard right.  
  
“Sam?” he asked cautiously, looking around more carefully.  
  
Then again, without a doubt. Dean was  _not_ hearing things _._  
  
 _“Ow,”_  the tiny voice said again, and it was coming from...mother _fucking_  fuckity-fuck, it was coming from Sam’s shoes.  
  
Dean crept closer, eyes wide and disbelieving. This was  _so_  not happening. This was  _not. Happening._  
  
There was movement in one of the shoes. With a feeling of unreality, Dean knelt down by his brother’s shoe and peered inside.  
  
Sam held on to the back lip of the shoe, swaying dizzily, no more than six inches tall. When he spotted Dean hovering over his head he gave a tiny yelp of shock and fell backwards into the shoe, scrambling for cover. Dean heard him give a tiny shriek of  _“What the fuck?”_  
  
“Oh. Shit.” Dean breathed. “Sam. Sammy. You’re...you got...”  
  
Sam poked his head back out of the shoe, and his miniature mouth gaped open in shock as he stared up at his enormous brother.  
  
“You got zapped,” Dean finished weakly. Sam could only stare up at him, wide-eyed with disbelief.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
_“No!”_  Sam said shrilly. “You are not picking me up!” He batted wildly at Dean’s fingers as he tried to reach into the shoe. “You’ll squash me!”  
  
“I wouldn’t!” Dean said, wounded. “I can control myself!”  
  
“You would!” Sam shrieked, sounding hysterical. He was backed up into the toe of the shoe, and his trembling shook the entire thing. “You would because you’re a big -  _huge_  - giant!”  
  
“Hey!” Dean retorted. “Look whose talking! Except for right now. You’re not so tall right now.”  
  
“I’m a bug!” Sam wailed. “I’m gonna get eaten by something!”  
  
The thought had Dean compulsively covering the opening of the shoe with his hand, horrifying images marching across his thoughts of alley cats and little rat dogs and god forbid, owls and shit, come to carry off his newly tiny brother and feed him to their enormous, vicious chicks.  
  
Sam yelped at the abrupt disappearance of the little light that managed to reach him and Dean took his hand away guiltily.  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, trying to peer into the shoe to see Sam without actually moving it.  It was surprisingly difficult.  
  
Sighing, Dean withdrew a little and plopped down on his rear, tired of crouching.  
  
“Are you ever gonna come out, then?” he asked curiously. Sam responded with a muffled  _“No,”_  and Dean sighed again. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I guess...” he trailed off, reached out, and picked up the shoe with Sam in it.  
  
 _“Whoa!”_  Sam said from deep in the toe area.  
  
“I gotcha,” Dean said reassuringly, pushing himself to his feet. He tried to keep the shoe as level as possible, but didn’t think he’d entirely succeeded because Sam came sliding out of the toe on his belly with a squawk. Dean saw a pair of tiny jean-clad legs and itty-bitty bare feet before Sam was scrambling desperately back into the safety of the shoe. Dean couldn’t help vibrating a little with a silent chuckle as he took off at a brisk walk towards the car.  
  
In the shoe, Sam groaned, sounding horribly queasy.  
  
“You want to come out, Sam?” Dean asked, tilting his head to peer into the shoe with one eye. “I mean, it can’t smell all that good in there.”  
  
The only answer was the sound of tiny retching. Dean winced in sympathy and stopped for a moment, letting Sam recover.  
  
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “Now it  _really_  can’t smell all that good in there. I promise I won’t squash you or drop you or anything else that’s going through your head. Will you  _please_  come out of the shoe?”  
  
Sam did, crawling on his hands and knees and wobbling drunkenly. Dean winced and -  _very_  - carefully lowered the shoe to the ground. “Okay, so...you just want to climb on my hand...?”  
  
Sam nodded queasily, and Dean hesitated.  
  
“Okay, but no puking on me, got it?”  
  
Even as a tiny, tiny person not even as tall as Dean’s hand, Sam could pack a nasty glare. Dean winced again and gingerly lowered his fingers into the shoe, curling them gently and letting Sam stagger over and plop onto them.  
  
Dean was suddenly struck stupid. Sam was so  _small._  His tiny little bones felt like the bones of a sparrow, so fragile and easy to hurt. His arms wrapped around Dean’s thumb and he clutched tightly, his fingers like...well, like nothing Dean had ever seen. His hands were the size of Dean’s thumbnail, if that.  
  
Heart in his throat, Dean very, very carefully lifted his hand out of the shoe, Sam clinging with all his might. As soon as his hand was clear of the shoe Dean brought his other hand around underneath so that he was holding Sam in his two cupped hands, suddenly afraid that he  _would_  end up accidentally squashing his brother. In his hands, Sam wrapped himself around one of Dean’s thumbs, putting his chest against Dean’s skin, and Dean could feel his tiny heart beating.  
  
“Oh my god,” Dean breathed, suddenly afraid to talk normally lest he blow Sam away entirely.  
  
“Dude,” Sam said, sounding impressed. “You’re  _huge.”_  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Somehow, they managed to get to the car without any more epic disasters happening, though Dean didn’t breathe easily until they were in the car, all four doors firmly closed, and then they had another problem.  
  
“I am  _not_  letting you put me in your pocket,” Sam growled - at least Dean  _thought_  he was growling. “Just let me sit in the passenger seat. I’ll be fine.”  
  
 _Fine_  had mental images of a tiny little Sam flying into the windshield -  _Splat!_  - when Dean braked for a stop sign, or tumbling down into the crack by the door, never to be seen again, and he automatically curled his fingers over Sam in response, closing him in a cage of fingers.  
  
 _“No,”_  he said firmly. “Definitely not.”  
  
Sam blew out a tiny, frustrated sigh.  
  
“Okay then,” he said irritably. “What do  _you_  suggest?” Dean opened his mouth. “And I’m  _not_  sitting in your pocket,” Sam said again, and Dean closed his mouth.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“I hate you,” Sam yelled, barely audible over the roar of the engine. He was clinging desperately to the top of Dean’s breast pocket, rocking wildly to the movement of the car, tiny head of hair crazily mussed.  
  
“No puking,” Dean said back.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
By the time they got back to the motel, Sam was white-faced and almost limp. Halfway through the drive he’d given up on trying to stay standing in Dean’s pocket and collapsed, giving Dean a heart attack until he’d peered down into his pocket to see Sam covering his face with his hands.  
  
“You okay?” he’d said, and little Sam had nodded pathetically, so Dean kept driving, trying to get them back to the room as quickly as possible.  
  
Now he was trying to coax Sam out of his pocket so he could carry him back to the room without fearing that he would smother his brother, but it was taking some time. Sam was a little wobbly.  
  
“Dude, c’mon,” he said, trying to be quiet so he didn’t blast Sam’s ears right off. “You gotta climb out, man. I can’t dig you out.”  
  
Sam groaned and laboriously unfolded his legs and pushed himself to his feet, clutching at the top part of the pocket, unsteady on his fabric footing.  
  
“Okay, okay,” Dean said, sticking two fingers in his pocket alongside Sam. “I gotcha now, I gotcha.” He curled his fingers gently under Sam’s rump and drew him carefully out, Sam leaning against his hand and hugging one of Dean’s fingers. “Okay. You okay?”  
  
“I’m  _fine,_  Dean,” Sam said pissily. Dean couldn’t be sure in the dark, but he thought Sam was giving him an epic bitchface.  
  
It was oddly reassuring.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“So, I guess it’s a good thing your clothes shrunk with you,” Dean said later, peering intently at Sam. His miniaturized brother was sitting cross-legged on the table in the motel room, staring back at him.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam replied, glancing down at his clothes. “Except for my shoes.”  
  
“Well, ’s not like you’re gonna be walking very far,” Dean said pragmatically. Sam shot him a filthy glare. “Well, it’s not!” he said defensively.  
  
Sam slumped, dejected. Dean winced. Sam was  _so tiny,_  and when he pulled out the sad face he was the very picture of pathetic misery. “Hey,” he said desperately, trying on a smile. “It’s okay. We’ll fix this, right?  _I’ll_  fix this. I’ll fix it, Sammy, promise.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Sam sighed, then brightened. “Hey, look,” he said, reaching behind himself. “I felt it while I was in your pocket rolling around...” and he pulled out the tiniest, cutest little semi-automatic that Dean had ever seen. Dean gaped, because  _seriously?_  
  
“Your gun shrank,” Dean said dumbly, and Sam gave him a  _duh_  look. “You’ve got a gun.”  
  
“Yeah Dean, I’ve got a gun,” Sam said smugly.  
  
“What’re you gonna shoot with that?” Dean couldn’t help asking. “An ant?”  
  
Sam’s face went white.  
  
“Are there ants in here?” he asked, sounding panicked as he scrambled to his feet and looked around where he’d been sitting, as if an ant had been hiding behind him ready to strike. “Or,” he continued, gulping and going even paler, “sp-spiders?”  
  
Dean stopped and felt his eyes widen, and suddenly had to force himself to not reach out and curl his hands around Sam protectively where he stood on the table. Instead, he took a long, careful look around the room.  
  
“I don’t see anything,” he said nervously, pulling unhappily on one earlobe. “Jesus, Sam. I was gonna drop you off here and go back to that witch’s apartment but seriously, I don’t think I should leave you here alone.”  
  
“No!” Sam gasped. “What if she zaps you too?”  
  
“Call Bobby?” Dean proposed, and Sam winced.  
  
“Oh,  _man,”_  he groaned. “He’s gonna be  _so pissed.”_  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“You did  _WHAT?”_  Bobby growled.  
  
“I didn’t  _do_  anything,” Dean grumped. “It was Sam. He’s the one who opened the door.”  
  
 _“Hey!”_  Sam yelled from the table, sounding distant and petulant.  
  
There was a long pause from Bobby.  
  
“You boys had better get here quick, then,” he finally sighed over the line.  
  
“Uh, yeah. About that,” Dean said, glancing at teeny-tiny Sam across the room. “Seems we have some issues with car travel. Bobby, he gets carsick  _bad.”_  
  
“So?”  
  
 _“So?_  So I don’t want him puking in my pockets!”  
  
“Who said anything about pockets? Get him a bird cage, or something.”  
  
Dean thought about that for a second and felt his own face settle into an expression of abject guilt, and he hadn't even  _done_ anything!  Yeah, he was all for doing some hilarious and sometimes kinda shitty stuff to his brother, but the the thought of putting tiny little Sam in a cage...he really, really didn't think he could do it.  
  
“A bird cage,” Dean said flatly, glancing at Sam again. “You want me to put my six-inch tall brother in a  _bird cage._ _”_  
  
“You got any better ideas?” Bobby groused.  
  
“Yeah! You come  _here_  and help me gank this bitch and we fix Sam that way!”  
  
“Even if we kill her, if it’s a disconnected spell - and from what I hear, that’s exactly what it is - then he needs a purification ritual, and I have to find the right one, and all of my books and resources are here. It could take me days to find the right one and did you say you’re in Texas? It’ll take me two days to get there after that!  You sure you want to wait that long?”  
  
“No,” Dean said, thinking again about cats and owls and  _spiders,_  Jesus.  
  
“Then go get an aquarium, or a terrarium, or a friggin'  _paper cup_  for all I care, put your brother in it, and get your butts out here. I’ll start the research now.”  
  
Dean blew out a sigh. This was going to be fun.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“No.”  
  
“Sam...”  
  
 _“No,_  Dean. No.”  
  
“You want to spend a week like this?” Dean demanded, fed up with his brother’s stubbornness. “‘Cause that’s how long it might take. Or we can take two days to drive up to South Dakota and maybe get you back to normal a lot sooner!”  
  
“I am  _not_  riding in the car in a mouse tank!” Sam shrilled.  
  
“Well, as far as I can see, you don’t have much say in the matter!”  
  
“The hell I don’t!” Sam retorted, and he pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans. Dean gaped at him, then at the tiny gun in his tiny little hand, and felt amusement bubble up in his chest. He couldn’t help it.  
  
He laughed.  
  
Sam’s face grew redder and redder the longer Dean laughed, and the redder Sam’s face got, the harder Dean laughed, until Sam looked about an instant from steam pouring out of his ears.  
  
Dean stepped closer to the table, reaching out for the gun, saying, “What’re you gonna do with that Sam, scare the flies off...?”  
  
 _Pop._  
  
Dean stopped talking and blinked at the small flash of flame from Sam’s hand, then blinked again.  
  
“Ouch,” he said dumbly, and turned his hand over. It felt like he’d just gotten stung by a bee or something, and as he watched, a tiny bead of blood welled up in the fleshy part of his palm and spilled over. It throbbed.  _“Ouch,”_  he said again. “Fuck, Sam. Did you just _shoot_  me?”  
  
Sam looked at him mulishly, gun in hand.  
  
“I am  _not_  riding in a fucking  _mouse_  tank,” he said flatly.  
  
“You did!” Dean gasped. “You little fucker, you  _shot_  me! Jesus Christ! You shot me!”  
  
“No. Mouse. Tank,” Sam enunciated, lifting the gun again.  
  
“Okay, okay!” Dean said, retreating a step. “Christ, I can’t believe you fucking shot me! What the fuck did I ever do to you? Wait, don’t answer that,” he added hastily, when Sam opened his mouth with a scowl. “Jesus,” he said again, looking carefully at his hand. “That  _hurt,_  goddamn it. And I’m gonna have to dig it out with the tweezers. Jesus  _Christ,_  Sam...”  
  
Dean turned away towards the bathroom to find the first-aid kit, still shaking his head in disbelief.  
  
So. No mouse tanks, apparently. And he kind of got the feeling that a bird cage was out of the question too.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
Pissed, Dean stayed in the bathroom for as long as he could, removing the microscopic bullet and cleaning and bandaging the tiny hole it left behind, scowling fiercely all the while. Then he took his time taking a long shower and scrubbing himself all over, then proceeding to use the toilet for...well, for a significant amount of time, and finally combing his hair carefully, and thoroughly brushing his teeth. By the time he was done his temper had cooled considerably in spite of everything (Sam had shot him, goddamnit) so that when he opened the bathroom door he was ready to be magnanimous and let bygones be bygones.  
  
“Jesus Christ,  _Sam!”_  
  
“A little help here, please?” Sam grunted in a small voice, teetering on the rung underneath the chair, trying to get his balance enough to swing down to the floor.  
  
“What the  _fuck,_  man?” Dean yelped, rushing forwards to cup his hands beneath his brother so that Sam could step down onto him, trembling from head to foot from exertion.  
  
“It’s  _cold_  up there!” he whined when he caught his breath. “I don’t have any shoes and you  _left_  me there for  _hours,_  and I damn near froze to death because I clearly can’t regulate my body-temperature anymore and by the way, were you planning on starving me?”  
  
Overcome with guilt (which he shouldn’t be, really, because the tiny little fucker had  _shot_ him, after all), Dean very carefully curled his hands around Sam's little body, guiltily realizing that Sam hadn't been lying about the cold thing because his poor little bare feet were like tiny slivers of ice against his bare skin, and he was shivering.  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Dean said. “Here, c’mere, I gotcha.” He took his brother over to the bed and laid down on his back, where he gently rolled Sam onto his chest, right over Dean's collarbone where his body heat was pretty high. Then he lightly cupped one hand over his brother’s tiny back and took a breath, because he’d never admit it but  _here,_  with Sam right over his heart, he could feel him and see him and know he was safe.  
  
Sam was pliant, too cold to put up much of a fuss, lying limp and quiet on Dean’s chest. After several long moments, he roused himself enough to say, “Dude, we’re never speaking of this again,” before he settled once more and basked in the feeling of being warm.  
  
Eventually, however, even Dean could hear the tiny growls emanating from his belly.  
  
“Okay,” he grunted, rolling upright, careful to keep Sam steady on his chest before drawing him gently away once he was upright. “I’m gonna make you a - a little place, here on the bed, and you’re gonna  _sit_  there and you’re not gonna  _move_  while I go out for some hamburgers at the joint down the street, got it?”  
  
“Get enough food for tomorrow morning,” Sam ordered from where he clung to Dean’s fingers. “I want a salad. And I guess a hamburger or a burrito. They’re not too bad when they’re cold.” Dean blew out a sigh and shook his head in pity.  A salad. Would his brother never learn?  
  
“All right,” he allowed. “A salad it is.”  
  
He got to his feet and found his shoes, snagged the keys on his way out the door, stopped because Sam said something from behind him.  
  
“What?” he asked, turning around. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the pillow, looking very tiny and very helpless.  
  
“I said, sorry,” Sam said again, his voice small and distant in the dimness of the room. “For...you know. And, um. Thanks.”  
  
“Oh,” Dean said, and blinked, tried to recall the pissed-off feeling he’d had when he’d come out of the bathroom, and couldn’t quite manage it. Finally, he sighed. “No problem,” he said finally, and he even smiled across the room at his brother. And then he flipped the other light on when he was on his way out, so Sam had enough light to see by.  
  
He was such an awesome brother.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
“Yeah, can I have a small chicken salad and two Big Macs?” Dean asked the lady working the speaker at McDonald’s.  
  
“Did you want the meals or just the sandwiches?”  
  
“Um, meals,” Dean said.  
  
“What would you like to drink with that?”  
  
“Coke.”  
  
“What size?”  
  
“Large.”  
  
“That’ll be $13.75 at the first window.”  
  
Dean pulled up through the drive-thru, tapping at the steering wheel in time to AC/DC’s  _Danger_  and looking lazily around the shopping center he was in.  
  
Then he sat bolt upright, because  _dude,_  there was a Target  _right fucking there._  
  
And Dean really impressed himself with his own genius sometimes, seriously, because he’d just had the best fucking idea in the history of ever.  
  
In a hurry now, more than having his shrunken brother alone in the motel room warranted, Dean picked up the pace, because he had to go to Target now and buy a toy.  
  
Dean forked over a ten and a five, grabbed the food, told the lady to keep the change, and peeled out of the drive-thru.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“Sam!” Dean said, stepping through the door. “Look what I got!”  
  
On the pillow, Sam looked up at him, in the exact same spot as he’d been when Dean left. He was also holding his tiny gun in his lap.  
  
He looked warily at the large plastic  _Target_  bag Dean had hanging from one arm.  
  
“What?” he asked cautiously, and Dean dumped the food on the table and pulled out the thing he was so delighted about.  
  
It was a Barbie & Ken off-road jeep.  
  
It was also pink.  Bright, neon, little girl pink.  
  
“And what, exactly, do you expect to do with that?” Sam asked slowly, eyeing the monstrosity with severe dislike.  
  
Dean blinked in surprise at his tone, glancing at the jeep, then shook his head.  
  
“No, not the jeep, dumbass,” he said in exasperation. “The  _seat.”_  
  
“The seat,” Sam said flatly.  
  
“Yeah, the seat that I’m gonna yank out of this piece of shit toy and attach to the back of the seat in the car, in front, in the middle, with lots of duct tape and shit, so you can sit your ass down where you can see where we’re goin’  _and_  put a seatbelt on, because I am the most awesome brother  _ever."_  
  
Oh.  
  
Sam stood up and clambered his way off the pillow and down to the edge of the bed, trying to get close enough to see what Dean was doing as he ripped apart packaging and pulled the violently pink  _thing_  out of its box.  
  
“Here, c’mere,” Dean said, seeing him perching on the edge of the bed, and he came over to cup his hands together right next to Sam where he could easily climb on, then carried him carefully back to the table.  
  
 _“The most realistic yet!”_  Sam read, mimicking the exuberant-looking font as well as he could manage, using a high-pitched and excitable sounding voice. Then he blinked because Dean practically fell off the chair from laughing, and laughed and laughed until his eyes were watering and his face was red.  
  
“Jeez, Dean,” Sam said, and it set Dean to laughing again, even as he weakly tugged at the pink jeep. Sighing, Sam turned to look at the bag of food on the other side of the table, which smelled good enough that his stomach growled viciously. Since Dean didn’t seem inclined to calm down anytime soon, Sam got to his feet and jogged across the table, busily opening the bag and peering inside.  
  
His salad, of course, was on the very bottom, even though the bag was on its side.  
  
“Dean!” he said, frustrated. Dean came over, still snickering, and pulled Sam’s salad out for him.  
  
Sam felt his eyes grow wide. It was the biggest salad he’d ever seen in his  _life._  The strips of chicken were as tall as he was.  
  
Whatever expression Sam had on his face, it set Dean to howling.  _Again._  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” Sam chanted, clutching desperately at the white plastic toy seat he was sitting in. It was duct taped firmly to the headrest of the car’s front seat, about a foot away from Dean’s head so he wouldn’t have to shout to be heard, but that meant there was a huge expanse of empty air in front of him and his feet dangled over what felt like utter nothingness, and no matter how firmly the damned thing was duct taped, it still wobbled.  
  
Dean looked over at him with a grin, singing along to thunderous Led Zeppelin, and Sam tried to force his expression into something less  _utterly terrified._  
  
He wasn’t sure how well it was working.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
They stopped for gas and coffee around noon.  
  
Sam was hungry, so Dean gave him a peanut.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
They came to an agreement in regards to going pee. So long as there was a plug in whatever sink they were using, Dean would let him go in there. Otherwise, Sam had to go  _underneath_  the car.  
  
Sam didn’t mention the unmentionable. He was hoping he could hold it until he was big again.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Sam looked exhausted, Dean noticed, feeling a little guilty as he gently deposited his brother on the bed that night. Once down, Sam rolled wearily onto his belly and sprawled out blissfully, stretching as far as he could. His entire body heaved with the strength of his sigh.  
  
“Tired, kiddo?” Dean nudged Sam gently in the shoulder with the tip of one finger.  
  
“Mmmph,” Sam said, turning his tiny little head to stare pitifully up at Dean. “I want a shower.”  
  
“Um,” Dean said. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”  
  
“Too bad,” Sam retorted grumpily. “I’m tired and hungry and dirty and I haven’t brushed my teeth in like, thirty-six hours, and I’ve worn the same clothes for that long as well. I need a shave like nobody’s business and I’m gonna take a  _friggin’ shower.”_  
  
“Jeez, touchy,” Dean grumbled, pulling away a little to think this through. “And fuck if I’m gonna help you shave. You’d probably take your entire head off.”  
  
Sam glared at him and Dean ignored it, thinking. He was  _not_  putting his brother in the shower. He’d probably get lost or drown or something and damn, what a lame way to go.  
  
He told his brother as much.  
  
Sam huffed a few times, clearly working his way up to an epic bitchfit, and Dean backpedaled hurriedly.  
  
“How about a bath?” he asked, and Sam paused, eyeing him balefully from the bed.  
  
“A bath,” he said, voice flat.  
  
“Yeah, like I could plug the sink and fill it up. It’d be like a spa or something.”  
  
Sam thought about that, furrowing his brow doubtfully, but seemed to see the wisdom of Dean’s suggestion and finally nodded reluctantly. Dean jumped up to make good on his word, turning on the sink to run warm and clear, then plugging it firmly.  
  
Sam stood on the edge of the sink and looked down into the water warily, still fully clothed, before shrugging.  
  
“Okay, I’ll call you if I need anything,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. Dean hesitated, hovering uncertainly until Sam paused and looked up at him questioningly.  
  
“I, um...” Dean said, and Sam’s small faced scrunched up in an expression of displeasure, and it was the tiniest, cutest bitchface Dean had ever seen, because  _dude._  Tiny tiny bitchface.  
  
“I can bathe by myself, Dean,” Sam sassed him, folding his miniature arms. “I’m a grown man, thanks ever so.”  
  
“Well,  _man,_  yes,” Dean allowed, because Sam was most certainly still a man - stubble and all. “But  _grown_...not so much, Sammy.”  
  
Sam’s mouth opened in sheer disbelief at his brother’s gall, seemingly struck speechless. For a moment, anyway.  
  
 _“Out!”_  Sam bellowed with all the strength in his shrunken lungs, and Dean grinned and reluctantly withdrew, making sure to leave the door cracked.  
  
He lasted for like, twenty minutes, at least (okay, maybe it was more like fifteen. Certainly no less than ten) before he found himself elbowing through the bathroom door again, staring up at the ceiling as he groped blindly for the toilet to sit down on.  
  
Sam squawked in wordless outrage.  
  
“Relax,” Dean said, relieved to find his brother alive and in one piece and not, say, splattered on the bathroom floor or floating face-down in the sink. “I can’t see anything from here but your head above the sink.”  
  
 _“Dean!”_  Sam snapped in protest, and Dean blinked because were those Sam’s  _boxers?_  Hanging on the edge of the sink? Neatly laid out to dry?  
  
“Are those your boxers?” he asked stupidly, because it was ridiculous how cute they were. But boxers weren’t cute, especially not Sam’s plain dark green ones. Nothing cute about them at all. They weren’t. Except they  _totally were._  
  
Not that Dean would ever,  _ever_  admit such a thing.  
  
 _“Dean,”_  Sam whined, blowing out a sigh. “Man, what the hell?”  
  
“You should be thanking me,” Dean informed his little brother seriously. “Because how else would you get shampoo for your ridiculous girly locks? Hand soap is  _so_  not good for beauty queens.”  
  
Sam’s face got very red, although Dean couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or anger.  
  
Dean turned away hurriedly to reach into the shower for his bottle of shampoo, squeezing out a pea-sized drop onto his finger, then leaning over to very, very gently smear it over Sam’s tiny fragile skull.  
  
Sam squawked again, seemingly struck speechless by the injustice of it, flailing at Dean’s finger and almost losing his balance and toppling over into the water.  
  
“Whoa,” Dean said, letting Sam grab onto his finger to regain his balance. “Careful there, kiddo.”  
  
Sam shot him an absolutely poisonous glare, then reluctantly reached up and began scrubbing at his hair, creating a shit ton of white soapy suds because apparently even pea-sized was a lot of shampoo.  
  
And then Dean had to knuckle his eyes, because, well,  _shit._  
  
He was such a bleeding heart, Christ.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Freshly washed and wearing a hastily blow-dried pair of boxers and his undershirt, Sam was happy to be set down gently on the table with his gun (in case of spiders), a quarter of a fry, a water bottle cap filled with coke, and a minuscule chunk of hamburger as big as his head. Then Dean turned the television on for the first time since this whole mess started and it was obviously a piece of crap because it delayed turning on for more than thirty seconds and then came on so deafeningly loud that Dean winced and scrambled for the remote and Sam fell over with a strangled yelp and lost his fry.  
  
Dean gave him another one after he made sure Sam’s eardrums hadn’t burst.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Sam woke up the next morning in his makeshift bed on the bedside table and knew without a doubt that  _this was the day._  
  
He couldn’t hold it anymore.  
  
He grunted in discomfort as he pushed his blanket (one of his own full-sized shirts) off of him and clambered to his feet.  
  
“Dean,” he said, staring at his brother’s enormous face where it was smooshed into his pillow, not a foot away from him. He was drooling. And also ignoring Sam. “Dean.  _Dean. DEAN!”_  
  
“Guh,” Dean said, opening one eye. “What, Sam?”  
  
“I have to go,” Sam said, feeling sweat form all along his hairline. “Like, now.”  
  
“Go? What?”  
  
“Damn it, Dean!” Sam exploded. “I gotta take a shit, like right the fuck now!”  
  
 _That_ woke Dean up.  
  
“Oh, um,” he said blankly, sitting up and looking around like the answer would merely appear out of thin air. “Can’t you, um, hold it?”  
  
“I’ve  _been_  holding it!” Sam said hysterically. “I’ve been holding it for two days!  I gotta go now, man!”  
  
“Okay, okay, take a chill pill,” Dean said, swinging his legs off the bed. “Just, how’re we gonna do this? I am  _not_  holding you over the fuckin’ toilet.”  
  
“Just take me to the sink,” Sam said crossly. “I need you to take out the plug, it’s not hard. So I can sit over the drain.”  
  
“No the fuck way,” Dean said flatly. “You might fall in.”  
  
Sam stopped, stock still, and stared up at Dean with his mouth hanging open, struck utterly speechless. Then Dean seemed to realize what he said, because at least he had the grace to blush.  
  
“It’s just,  _man,_  you’re, um, fuckin’  _minuscule,”_  he muttered defensively. “I gotta make sure you don’t kill yourself when you're...you know.  Or something.”  
  
Sam gaped some more. He looked horrified.  
  
Dean shifted uncomfortably.  
  
Sam took several deep breaths and opened his mouth, shut it, took a few more deep breaths, and tried again.  
  
“So what, exactly, am I supposed to do?” he asked, very calmly. “Because I gotta tell you, man, I’m gonna shit my pants here in a minute.”  
  
Thirty seconds later, Sam was sans pants, in the sink, and Dean was hovering worriedly, uncomfortably, just outside the door.  
  
They were  _never speaking of this again._  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
Back in the car and  _much_  more comfortable, thank you very much, Sam graciously accepted a tiny piece of pretzel from his brother and less happily struggled with the bottle cap Dean had filled with water for him. They had to pull over whenever Sam needed something to drink (otherwise he ended up soaked), so he drank as much as he could stomach and Dean resigned himself to stopping every two hours so Sam could take a piss behind one of the tires and have another drink.  
  
It was day two.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
They stopped for gas and lunch around two, and Dean went inside for lunch from the gas station while Sam did his business behind the tire.  
  
And he was  _minding his own business,_  doing nothing out of the ordinary, but that fucking bird was fucking huge and  _Christ, Dean, what did you expect me to do?_  
  
Dean bought a coffee (because he was sole driver here), a bag of beef jerkey, and an assortment of sour candies, then came out of the gas station in time to hear several tiny pops that he couldn’t immediately identify, then had a heart attack because it was the sound of little tiny gunshots from a little tiny semi-automatic.  
  
Dean dropped the candy (but not the coffee or jerkey) and sprinted the last few steps in time to see a fuckin’  _crow_  fling itself out from underneath the car in a flurry of agitated black feathers.  
  
“Whoa,” Dean said, dropping to his knees. “Sam?”  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Dean peeked under the car now that he was sure Sam wouldn’t shoot him. Sam was backed up against the far wheel, hair more rumpled than ever, looking scared shitless.  
  
“Did you just take potshots at a  _crow?”_  Dean asked incredulously, and there it was.  
  
Tiny epic bitchface.  
  
“Good,” Dean said. “I hate those fuckers. Now c’mon, lets blow this joint. I got jerkey.”  
  
Sam looked very relieved about the jerkey, Dean noted smugly, and his tiny little brother clambered out from underneath the car and onto Dean’s proffered hand, still shaking a little bit.  
  
Heart twinging because  _dude,_  that shit’s gotta be horror-movie worthy for such a little guy, Dean curled his fingers carefully around Sam’s body, creating a protective cage as he lifted him up to eye-level. Sam held on to one finger and peered out at Dean, meeting his eyes seriously, his hair all over the place and falling into his eyes for lack of a comb.  
  
Dean couldn’t help but grin, because  _Christ._  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“Six hours, probably. Maybe six and a half.”  
  
“That’s good, I think I’ve got the right one here in front of me,” Bobby said. “I just gotta brew it up.”  
  
“How long’ll that take?” Dean asked.  
  
“Bout eight hours,” Bobby said casually, like he was afraid of Dean’s reaction.  
  
“That’s all?” Dean asked, startled. “I thought it’d take longer.”  
  
“Nope. Eight hours.”  
  
Dean blinked and glanced over at Sam, clinging tightly to his unsteady plastic Barbie chair, the  _it really works!_  but incredibly clunky functional seatbelt practically dwarfing his tiny frame.  
  
“Okay then,” Dean said into the phone. “We’ll see you soon, Bobby. Thanks.”  
  
“No problem, kid. Keep your brother safe, y’hear?”  
  
“Will do,” Dean promised, and closed his phone, glancing back at Sam.  
  
Eight hours until Sam was normal sized. That was a good thing. It was.  _Really._  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
It was actually a bit more than six-and-a-half hours, because three hours in they stopped for another potty-break  _(“I’m gonna break your nose, Dean, I swear to god.”)_  and Sam refused to get back in, stating the car was  _“a rattle-trap that’s gonna rattle my teeth right outta my head, damn it.”_  
  
So they ended up sitting on the side of the highway,  _Back in Black_  blaring from the open windows of the car, Sam sitting cross-legged in Dean’s shadow because the sun was too hot for tiny-him.  
  
“Can’t believe you called my car a rattle-trap,” Dean groused, wounded. “She’s not even.”  
  
“She  _is,”_  Sam insisted, accepting the fragment of potato-chip that Dean offered him. “And the barbie seat wobbles. It’s awful.”  
  
Dean snickered a little, knowing damn well that while the seat wobbled, it also wasn’t going anywhere. There was a shit-ton of tape on that thing, Dean had made sure.  
  
“That’s gotta be awesome, though. Like a ride at Disneyland or something.”  
  
“How would you know what a ride at Disneyland feels like?” Sam asked crossly. “You’ve never been to Disneyland.”  
  
“No, but I drove past it once,” Dean fibbed. “And I’ve read things. I always wanted to go on the Indiana Jones one.” He offered Sam the water bottle cap, this time filled with coke.  
  
“We should go,” Sam said after he’d taken a drink and given a tiny burp, which,  _fuck._  
  
Dean blinked, having lost track of the conversation because his brother was  _so fucking tiny,_  he couldn’t bear it.  
  
“What?” he asked, noticing that Sam was staring at him with his tiny bitchface, which meant he’d missed something.  
  
“We should go,” Sam repeated. “To Disneyland.”  
  
Dean scoffed. “Hah, yeah right.”  
  
“Why not?” Sam huffed.  
  
“Dude, seriously?”  
  
“I’m perfectly serious,” Sam said snippily. “There’s no one to stop us. We’ve never been. We’ve always wanted to go. So why not?”  
  
“Dude, I’m not a  _kid,”_  Dean said, confused. Sam rolled his itty-bitty eyes, and Dean had to restrain himself from grabbing him up, because...well, because.  _So tiny._  
  
“I  _know_  that, Dean,” Sam sighed patiently, holding his cap up for a refill. Dean obliged, reaching for the bottle of coke. “But you still want to go on the Indiana Jones one, right? Admit it.”  
  
“Okay, fine, but how would it look for two full-grown men to be getting on a kid’s ride?”  
  
Sam looked at him incredulously as he accepted his cap again.  
  
“Since when do  _you,_  of all people, care about what anyone else thinks?”  
  
Which, okay. True.  
  
“Come on, Dean,” Sam wheedled, and shit, when Sam pulled out the bitty begging puppy-eyes Dean had no chance. None. Whatsoever.  
  
“Okay,” he said heavily. “We’ll go to Disneyland.”  
  
Sam smiled, showing off his tiny white teeth, and stood up, brushing dirt off his jeans.  
  
“Okay,” he said serenely. “I’m ready now.”  
  
Dean offered his hands and Sam stepped carefully up onto them, all miniature fragile bones and warm round skull. Dean gave in, just for a moment, and brought Sam up to his face and held him gently against his cheek.  
  
Sam said, “Ooof,” but generously said nothing else, and even patted Dean lightly on his jaw. Dean eased him away then and stood up carefully, fingers forming a cage that Sam peered out from behind, holding on to one finger.  
  
When he was helping Sam into his little seat, he couldn’t help but stroke down over Sam’s little head with a fingertip, ever so gently, a mimicry of the gesture in the sink the night before with the shampoo. Only this time it was just to run his finger over Sam’s ridiculous fluffy hair.  
  
Sam seemed to understand, because he just blinked up at him in silence.  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  
“There y’are,” Bobby said gruffly, flinging open the door. “Thought you’d gotten lost or something.”  
  
“You said eight hours,” Dean said defensively.  
  
 _“You_  said six!” Bobby huffed. “And it’s been  _nine.”_  
  
“Yeah, well,” Dean said, holding his cupped hands in front of him. “We stopped for dinner. Or something.”  
  
“Or something, huh?” Bobby said wryly, looking at Dean’s hands. “You in there, Sam?”  
  
Dean unfolded his hands a little, and Sam peeked up at them, holding on to Dean’s thumb.  
  
“Hey Bobby,” he said, waving a little and almost falling over, unsteady on the uneven footing of Dean's hands. Dean hastily closed them up again.  
  
“Got anywhere I can set him down where he won’t get eaten or stabbed or...something?”  
  
“Come on into the kitchen,” Bobby said, and Dean followed. The kitchen table had been (miraculously) cleared of everything except a small pot of...something that Dean didn’t want to contemplate.  
  
“Okay, Sam,” Dean said, putting his hands down on the table and opening them carefully. Sam stepped out onto the table, still barefoot, wild-haired and  _so, so tiny._  
  
“Christ,” Bobby said, and Dean glanced at him in understanding. Bobby’s face was twisted up and he’d sounded a little constipated.  
  
Sam had that effect.  _Christ_  indeed.  
  
“Okay, so what now?” Sam asked, standing in front of them with his little tiny hands behind his back, and Dean was  _not_  getting wobbly, he was  _not._  
  
A quick glance at Bobby showed that he was looking anywhere but at Sam.  
  
“Well, we essentially just douse you in it,” he said. “We can either put you in the pot - ”  
  
 _“No,”_  Sam and Dean said immediately. “No chance,” Dean continued.  
  
“ - or, we can just pour it over you.  On the floor.”  
  
Dean frowned. He didn’t like that option either, but it was better than dropping teeny tiny helpless Sam into a huge pot of...of...whatever the hell that was.  
  
“I guess that’s the route we’ll go, then,” Bobby said, still staring off into the distance. Dean looked at Sam, who was looking at the pot as though it was the answer to all his prayers and the subject of all his nightmares, all at once.  
  
“When I’m big again,” Sam said fiercely (Oh  _fuck,_  Dean thought as he picked Sam up and put him down on the floor), “I am ganking that bitch  _so hard.”_  
  
“Oh,” Bobby said. “About that...I already had Jackson do it. She’s done.”  
  
“Oh,” Sam said, and deflated. Dean looked at the ceiling, because god _damn._  
  
“So...” Bobby said slowly, questioningly, and Dean resolutely  _did not_  look at tiny Sam or Bobby or the fuckin’ terrifying pot of nasty-ass shit or  _anything_  except the ceiling.  
  
Except he couldn’t help it.  
  
He glanced down at Sam.  
  
Then his throat seized, because Sam was standing there all slump-shouldered and dejected and tiny and  _so goddamn cute._  
  
“Okay, do it,” Sam said in his little voice, and Dean looked resolutely at the ceiling again. He felt Bobby look at him for a moment, then a rustle as he reached across the table for the pot.  
  
Dean wasn’t looking, wasn’t looking...  
  
“Hey, Dean.”  
  
Dean looked back down.  
  
“On three then,” Bobby said. “One - ”  
  
“Indiana Jones,” Sam said firmly, and grinned at Dean as though including him in a secret, as though they were the only two people in the room.  
  
“ - two - ”  
  
That smile did things to Dean’s heart.  
  
He found himself smiling back.  
  
“ - three - ”  
  
  
  
  
 _I keep looking at the sky  
'Cause it's gettin' me high  
Forget the hearse 'cause I'll never die  
I got nine lives  
Cat's eyes  
Usin' every one of ‘em and runnin’ wild  
  
'Cause I'm back  
Yes, I'm back  
Yes, I'm back in black  
  
-Back in Black, AC/DC_  
  
 **Fin**


End file.
